I should probably go private with this conversation but I'll keep it public in the thread you created just in case others out there have some good input.
1. Music in the house via iPhone.
Hmmmm...well, if you have a Mac at home with all your music on it in iTunes, how about playing around with that "Signal" app that I talked about in a different thread? Set the Mac to blast out your iTunes wirelessly to a few AirPort Express base stations, hook the base stations to a few computer speakers (I share your semi-distain for Bose, but for 100 bucks they sell some really nice sounding PC speakers) and then control your iTunes library via Signal. I know it's not *exactly* playing your music via the iPhone's iPod capability, but in essence, it's almost the same thing.
2. Music in the car.
My bad - I just "assumed" that any current FM transmitter for iPod would just work for iPhone. After doing some searching, I see that's not really the case. Looks like there is an answer coming soon, though:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/devices/iphone/
3. Phone calls in the car.
If you want a "through the car speakers" device (which is understandable) that may take some searching - most of what I've seen doesn't particularly integrate via the car speakers, but uses its own speaker. The thing I had installed in my Volvo does go through the speakers, but the volume is controlled via the Bluetooth device, not the volume control on the radio.
4. Armbands that work.
Griffin offers an armband - don't know if that is the one that is being recalled, but it happened to also be on the web link I posted above.
Technology marches forward, and the iPhone has, granted, only been out for 6 weeks. There will be more stuff on the horizon, that's for sure - and may your wildest dreams, including those you haven't thought of yet, come true.